More than 4,000 people, mostly peasants, went out of their homes to take part in what has been the largest protest rally ever held in Gonzaga and Sta. Teresita, Cagayan today, March 19, 2011. They are denouncing the plunder of Taiwanese mining companies Lianxing and Huaxia.

Earlier in a press conference Alexander Padilla, GRP chief negotiator, raised some points regarding the peace talks between the GRP and NDF. I would like to get your comment..

1. The NDF refused to agree to a ceasefire while the joint monitoring committee is being convened in Manila.

Sison Reply: The NDFP does not agree with the GPH in preconditioning with ceasefire every formal meeting of the GPH and NDFP negotiating panels and even of the committees at the subpanel level because the repeated ceasefires seek to undermine the revolutionary will of the people and the revolutionary forces, impose capitulation and pacification on the NDFP and lay aside the need to address the roots of the armed conflict through basic social, economic and political reforms.

Interview by Jeffrey TupasDavao Correspondent of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

1. Padilla said the NDFP panel refused to agree to their request for a declaration of ceasefire while the joint monitoring committee is being convened in Manilla. He said it would be ridiculous if the team is convened in Manila while there is a "shooting war."

The National Democratic Front-Eastern Visayas today said the 8th Infantry Division is sabotaging the efforts for a just and lasting peace by covering up its human rights violations and threatening progressive activists. "The 8th ID recently violated international humanitarian law twice," said NDF-EV spokesperson Fr. Santiago Salas. "First, its 14th Infantry Battalion harassed two minors in a military operation at Brgy. Huknan, Giporlos, Eastern Samar. Second, the Civil-Military Operations Battalion of the 8th ID accused human rights group Katungod as a "communist front" for exposing the earlier violation and many more previously. In both instances, the military is clearly threatening civilians not involved in the armed conflict, which is prohibited under international humanitarian law."

The NDFP -- Mindanao joins our brethren Moro and the rest of the Filipino people in remembering the mass execution on 18 March 1968 of young Moro and non-Moro military recruits trained for then Dictator Marcos's mad ambition to invade the island of Sabah, Malaysia, known today as the infamous Jabidah massacre.

This slaughter of Moro soldier-trainees who were led to believe that obedience to the whim of a dictator amounted to 'nationalism' was the precursor of the Moro people's revolutionary struggle that sparked the creation of its revolutionary armed force, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and, later, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

The 27th IB and 39th IB who have been zealously guarding the mining areas of Xstrata-SMI and its peripheries have suffered casualties in a series of sniping operations conducted by the combined force of Red fighters and Milisyang Bayan of the New People's Army under the Mt. Alip Operations Command in Davao del Sur and in Columbio, Sultan Kudarat.

Red fighters of the Armando Dumandan Command-Front 33 Operations Command of the New People's Army in Southern Mindanao inflict several casualties on 10th ID-AFP troops engaged in combat operations disguised as peace and development outreach programs. The March 11 and 13 NPA actions in Compostela Valley Province hit the 10th ID-AFP combat troops resulting in at least 15 enemy casualties, with four killed including a company commander.

The Roslyn Pelle Command (RPC), NPA Northern Negros laughed off the wild stories of the AFP particularly that of 303rd Commander Col. Jonas Sumagaysay and Col Gubat about NPA units in mis-encounters. Sumagaysay claimed that there were several dead and wounded NPA red fighters as a result of the "skirmishes".

Ka Cecille Estrella, spokesman of the RPC countered that it was NOT and NPA mis-encounter but an AFP mis-encounter in Cambayobo, Calatrava last Jan 28. Local residents saw several dead bodies wearing combat boots being boarded to a military truck. Later an NPA local unit confirmed there were 15 dead enemy soldiers as a result of their mis-encounter. The AFP losing in the battlefield was quick in spinning lies and claim that it was the NPA on the run that has fought each other by mistake.